


The Memoir of an Average Gotham Citizen

by theCasualViewer



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theCasualViewer/pseuds/theCasualViewer
Summary: In a world teeming with superheroes and supervillains, what does it mean to be a regular person, caught in between these eternal fights?
Kudos: 1





	1. Just a lil backstory ;)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is mainly based off the premise of the moral greyness that superheroes pose. Yes, Batman saves the day by defeating the bad guy, but who covers the damages? Who gives the funds to repave the roads? Who is the one that rebuilds the buildings that are toppled in these fights for good, and evil?

It’s nice to think of people like Batman as superheroes. They swoop in, doling out justice against insane, sadistic supercriminals. The knowledge that Batman was on my side was what helped me sleep at night, it was what made me feel safe in my cracked out apartment in Gotham. 

But those childhood fantasies vanished like a puff of air into the cold night. 

The thing about Gotham is that you are either rich, or dirt fucking poor. There’s no in between, no cushy label of ‘middle class’. You’re either lining up around the block waiting for the food pantry from the local church to open up, or you’re driving a lambo down downtown. It’s a striking polarity, one that I’m sure the majority of America is familiar with. It’s my story, it’s the story of my family, the story of my friends. We exist in the cracks, growing like weeds through the broken concrete while the rich people walk by us, barely acknowledging our existence.

The other half of the city simply does not care. Bruce Wayne, the man who owns nearly all the property in the city, is the perfect example of that. He flashes his pearly whites for the cameras as he throws yet another lavish party, one girl draped across each arm. His loud sports cars zip through the streets, the rims of the tires more than a whole year's wages from me. Sure, he has his charities. But they’re mostly for show’. Not to mention the insane tax cuts he receives from funneling huge amounts of money into the shady facades of his so called philanthropy. In addition to this, he backs politicians who make sure that his companies or his finances are never put under a magnifying glass.

By my estimates, Mr. Wayne could end the housing crisis in our city, the food shortage and the rampant unemployment problem with more than a couple billion left in his bank account. If his company would stop outsourcing to cheap, foreign factories that undoubtedly utilize a sweatshop like business model, he could reduce the unemployment rate by nearly half. He has the means to end the major crisis in our city, and yet everyday he chooses not to.

And don’t even get me started on the Batman. 

Sure, call me a villain for saying that Batman fucking sucks, but if you listen to my story and reasoning a little bit, you’ll understand. 

In Gotham we have a crime problem. It’s an undisputed fact. But here's the thing, the majority of the inmates in Gotham State Penitentiary are non-violent offenders, and another chunk of them have been there since they were teenagers. “What crimes have they committed?” You might ask. I’ll tell you. 

The major reason why Gotham State Penitentiary is full of non-violent offenders is because Batman fucking puts them in there. Do you ever wonder what happens to the ‘nefarious’ henchmen that aid supervillains like the Riddler and the Penguin? Well, wonder no longer. Batman apparently has cameras in the eyeholes of his mask and films every single person he comes across. So if you were somehow caught in the same area as the Joker, less than a week later you’d get a knock on your door from the GPCD, a bogus warrant from commissioner Gordon and the judges Batman undoubtedly has on payroll in their hands. Doesn’t matter if you were fucking cleaning toliets, or unknowingly scrubbing the floors for Mr. Freeze. Association by proximity is enough to get you thrown into the clinker for twenty years. 

People know this, so whenever they see a job posting from a sketchy guy on the corner, with high hourly pay, they get suspicious. But pretty soon you notice how sparse your cupboards are, how the stacks of unpaid bills keeps piling up on your kitchen counter, and that guy on the corner won’t stop nagging at the back of your brain. Of course, there's the argument to be made that they could just say no, that they weren’t forced to take the job. Here's the thing about that though, poverty is one hell of a driving force into the so-called dark side. Face another week without a crumb of food in your cabinets and five hungry children, or risk spending life in jail but get enough money for your kids so they can eat for the rest of the year. It’s a dangerous line, and it is not an easy choice to make.

When the Joker was in his prime, he brought in gobs of money to the ghettos of Gotham. People were scared about the bombings and killings of course, but for the first time in a while, every Gotham family was provided the opportunity to have food for dinner that night and for the rest of the month. Batman can’t say the same. He’s been around for nearly a decade and we haven’t had the same guarantee. Instead he leaves us busted up buildings, and loved ones in prison. 

People still shudder in fear when they remember some of his more memorable fights.

“Remember when Superman and Batman were beefin?”

“Yeah, tore a fucking hole through my apartment building.”

“How bout that time when he had a literal fuckin plane? My street still busted up from when it crashed.”

“Sheesh, my kid still ducks behind a car everytime he hears a helicopter.”

“And that time he had a literal motherfuckin tank? That thing was straight from a fuckin war movie!”

“Hey, who says that Gotham ain’t a war zone? Sure feels like it.”

Every poor Gotham citizen has a story about how Batman fucked up their lives. Hell, so do I. And you know what’s the icing on top of the already shitty cake? Is that the GPCD doesn’t do shit about it. Instead they encourage it and the over militarization of marginalized communities. 

Who’s streets is it that Batman and his police lackeys patrol at night? Is it the ritzy neighborhoods up in north Gotham? Or is it the poor, black and brown communities in the east and southern portions of Gotham? Is Bruce Wayne getting the same amount of no knock warrants as we poor people down here? Is Bruce Wayne familiar with the sight of cop cars at every goddamn corner in the ghettos of Gotham? Hell naw. That man doesn’t even get a ticket when he crashes into other cars in his million dollar, luxury automobiles.

I said earlier that I had my own stories of how Batman fucked my life up. It kinda got lost in my rants about the GPCD and Batman’s obvious bias, but I feel like it’s important to mention. After all, if I’m to be seen as the villain of this story, y’all might as well get to know yours truly before drawing any conclusions. 

I was born in Gotham, to a mother I never really met on account of her dying right after I was born because of health complications. (My mother’s death is just another example of the never ending failures of Gotham’s healthcare system, but we ain’t here to talk about that.) My dad raised me in a beat up apartment in south Gotham. He taught me everything I know, from how to disarm an opponent three times my size, to how to make a weapon out of everyday items. You know, the usual stuff. He also taught me how to be unabashedly proud of my black skin, and to never let anyone demean me for my proud heritage.

“Our ancestors were some of the toughest motherfuckas on this planet.” he’d tell me. “They survived bein slaves and endured segregation, and their blood flows through you. Don’t you ever forget that, you hear me Bisa?”

“Yessir!” I’d say, my brow furrowed in concentration.

Anyways, daddy died when I was fifteen, a little bit after Batman had started showing his face around these parts. He was one of the lackeys working for Batman’s enemies. Daddy was a good man, but like I said before, we were toeing the thin line of complete, crippling poverty, or some sense of security. Daddy was a 6’5, muscular black man with a bald head and a menacing handlebar mustache. He was the perfect man for what the Joker needed in terms of security. 

Well one day, during one of the Joker’s and the Batman’s never ending battles, my old man got caught in the crossfire. 

A policeman who looked like he was fresh out of the academy and already tired of his job, stood on my doorstep and told me that my dad had died. I remember his nonchalant, noncommittal tone. He didn’t even remember my dad’s name, had to pull a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and read it out to me. Without waiting for me to reply, he left, walking down the steps of my crappy apartment without a single glance back. I was so shocked I couldn’t speak for a full five minutes, I just stood on my doorstep, my mouth gaping open like a fish. 

I needed confirmation. I needed to know without a shadow of a doubt, that the man who had died was my dad. A part of me was still convinced that he was alive, the tiny voice of hope soaring throughout me as I walked to the police station. When I got there, they made me wait a full three hours before a random woman in a dull grey suit came up and told me that yes, it was in fact my dad. They had made no mistake. 

She didn’t even hesitate to show me the video. While I sat in the uncomfortable plastic chairs across from her desk, it took her less than thirty seconds to type up my dad’s name in the computer database and find the video of my dad’s demise. She turned the monitor so that it was facing me, hitting play without a moment's hesitation and letting me watch the moment my father died. 

I watched through Batman’s eyes, the picture near crystal clear as he made his way through an underground cellar that one of Batman’s several nemesis had constructed. He turned a corner, and there he was, my dad. He was crouched behind a crate, trying to pull someone whose leg was broken out from under a toppled shelf. He looked up for a split second, pure naked fear written across his face as he tried to pull out his comrade. Batman barely noticed his presence, vaulting across the room and escaping the mushroom cloud of fire that ballooned behind him. Batman turned just as the flames engulfed the room. The lady kept pausing it, zooming in on my father as he was eaten up by flames. 

“Batman also has a facial recognition software built into his database.” she said. “There’s no mistaking that that man was your father.” 

That moment sparked something in me. I walked out of the station, my eyes unseeing, though my throat burned with a mixture of tears and anger. I didn’t have the money to throw a funeral or a memorial for my dad. Hell, I didn’t even have a body. I didn’t even have the cinders from the fire. On top of that, I had no family to call, no considerate and wealthy aunt or uncle who could swoop in and save me. 

I was alone, forcibly abandoned in an unfeeling, cruel world. 

After that I hated Batman. I hated the Joker too, but not as much as I hated Batman. Yes, the Joker was an awful human being, but he never masqueraded his being evil. He never put on a mask and called himself a hero. Batman did. And we just let him. 

The streets raised me after that. I squatted in buildings with other orphans and runaways, all of us hiding from the mean social workers and the vindictive system that would just spit us back onto the streets we currently were in. I saw friend after friend fall into the same trap my dad did. And each time I knew that they would not come back. This didn’t necessarily mean death, but even jail was a better prospect than sleeping among the cockroaches and eating the same shit the rats did. 

Every day was a struggle, every moment a fight for survival. I can’t count the amount of times I nearly died. Winters in Gotham are notoriously brutal too, the freezing winds blowing like tiny flying needles. I once woke up unable to open my eyelids because my eyelashes had frozen together. 

If I could leave this cursed goddamn island, I would. I’d grab the next bus out of here and go somewhere sunny like Los Angeles. But I can’t afford it. I can muster up enough dough for the ticket, but after that, I’d be in the same predicament. Homeless, hungry, and trying to hide from the super beings tearing through the city.

It isn’t like there aren’t any other superheroes out there. The world is brimming with them, gods amongst animals. But for every superhero, there is an equal and opposite reaction (Ha, see what I did there?). For every Superman, there is a Zod. For every Flash, there is a Captain Cold. You can’t escape it. Gotham just seems to have the short end of the stick. 

Ok, sheesh, that was a lengthy backstory. It’s kinda necessary though for the rest of the story, and to understand my point of view. See I have a goal, one that I’m going to take you along with. I want to make Batman pay. And no, that doesn’t mean fucking killing him. Too many people already have that objective. No, I want to make Batman see the consequences of his actions, feel what his power trip does to the average people. 

It won’t be easy, and it will take a while. But I’m ready, and I am more than willing. I can no longer stomach being a rat hiding in the alleys, I can no longer see my city fall into continuous ruin as these people treat Gotham like their own personal playground. 

First though, we have to have a little talk with an old friend. 


	2. What Makes You Tick?

I stand at the corner, wrapping my thrifted cheetah print jacket tightly around me. It’s nearing the end of November and already the air is stiff with cold. Across from me, a popular strip club blares music loudly, strobe lights glancing on the streets whenever the doors open. A line wraps around the curb, people dressed in scanty clothes huddling against the cold and waiting for an opportunity to get in.  
I light a cigarette, shaking my legs a little as I wait in the cold. It’s too cold to be standing on the street corner, especially with my meager winter apparel, but I’m waiting for someone.   
Harley Quinn and I have been friends for quite a while. I remember when she wasn’t psycho, and had a full time job as a therapist. Back when she was toted by Gotham’s top physicians as the most promising psychologist to ever grace Arkham Asylum’s dingy halls. She had awards hanging on her apartment walls for her outstanding work and a flashy degree from Gotham City University proclaiming her as Doctor Harley Quinn, her crowning achievement.  
We met when I was sixteen after I had been caught squatting in an abandoned apartment with a few other kids. A bunch of cops had rounded us up and put the younger ones into group homes, and me and a few of the older kids into juvie. The judge was looking to keep me in the slammer until my eighteenth birthday, accusing me of some bogus crime such as intent of malice towards the officers on the scene after I had rigged up some booby traps in the building.  
That’s when Ms. Harley swooped in, a smile made of killer sunshine rays, and a personality as lethal as any poison. She sweet talked my publicly appointed attorney and the defense attorney into deeming me a ‘troubled child’ and subjecting me to weekly therapy sessions with her instead of facing serious jail time for trespassing. It worked like a charm and less than a week later I was lounging in her ritzy Gotham apartment, hacking private computer mainframes for her and doing anything she desired.  
Ms. Quinn had another name, but that changed the moment she met the Joker, who satiated her thirst for violent crime and toxic, abusive relationships. People think that the Joker changed her when they met, that Harley was an innocent, pure hearted soul who was led astray by the big, bad Mr. J. It’s not as well known though, that Harley regularly peddled drugs to the druggies on the street. Her pro bono work for underprivileged kids in the nastier parts of Gotham consisted of her recruiting us to sell drugs to the addicts in our buildings.  
“No one suspects kids!” she told me once, her bubbly voice filling with joy as she counted the stacks of cash we forked over. “You guys are like little cash cows!”  
What she didn’t count on though, was the kids becoming territorial over their spots and clients and getting into fights that ended with a few of us in the hospital with stab wounds and one with an eye gouged out. At that point I intervened and offered her a deal that she couldn’t help but take. I created an app that connected all her plugs and sanctioned who’s zone was for who. It also alerted them whenever there was police presence around, and whether or not that cop would turn a blind eye or not. The app also alerted Harley to where her possy of child drug dealers were at all times, just in case they ran off with her goods.  
In return, she let me stay in her apartment and eat as much food as I wanted. The agreement came to a halting end though when the Joker came into the picture and Harley fell head over heels for him. I was thrown on my ass back onto the street, but not without Harley slipping a stack of bills into my coat pocket in appreciation for all that I had done.   
But now Harley’s graduated from petty crime and child run drug rings. Now she’s a full fledged crime tycoon with a profitable strip club and many other streams of crime focused revenue. I stopped keeping track of the amount of people she has killed, but I would guesstimate that it’s in the double digits, and closing in on a three digit figure. If she paid her taxes, her net worth would be somewhere in the high millions. But of course, tax evasion is just another crime in her extensive portfolio of felonies and crimes that could end her up in prison for several consecutive life sentences.  
I take a long drag of my cigarette, peering through the smoke at the strip club. Any moment now…  
“Peanut!” a high, excitable voice calls from behind me.  
I turn around, throwing my cigarette down and snuffing it under my shoe. Harley throws herself on me, wrapping her arms tightly around me.   
“Hey crazy.” I reply, enveloping her in a similarly bone crushing hug. “I missed you.”  
She crushes me under her surprisingly strong embrace, swinging her legs up around my middle and hanging from me like a monkey.   
“My lil peanut!” she cries giddly, smacking big fat kisses against my cheek.  
“Ok, Harley.” I laugh, extracting her from me. “It’s good to see you too.”  
She grins at me, pinching my cheeks delightedly. Harley is dressed in her notoriously bright, 80’s esque look. Her multicolored hair is swept up into her signature pigtails, though the ends are secured into two messy space buns. Just as the rest of her outfit, her makeup is nearly blinding, with glitter dusting her cheekbones and her eyelids smeared with bright, pink eyeshadow. Mascara runs down her face, in what I can only assume is an artistic choice. Her top is a bright pink halter top, which is paired with tight, black leather pants and a snow white fur coat.   
“I haven’t seen you in forever!” she squeals, tapping her feet excitedly. “I thought you’d forgotten all about me!”  
When she says the last part she juts her bottom lip out into a childlike pout.  
“I know.” I say, leaning against the brick wall and wrapping my coat around me even tighter. “I’ve been busy. That and you seemed… preoccupied.”  
“Yeah,” she chuckles, rolling her eyes. “You heard that I broke up with Mr. J?”  
I nod, pulling another cigarette out. The question was who hadn’t heard that she broke up with the Joker? She fucking blew up a factory.  
“You’re better off without him, Quinn. You’ve got twice the brains he has and twice the balls.”  
“I think so too.” she says proudly, puffing up her chest a little.  
I smile, lighting the cigarette and taking a puff before handing it to Harley, who accepts it.   
“So what have you been up to?” I ask. “Reminding everyone who wore the pants in the relationship?”  
“This and that.” she says. “I met a few gals that I think you’ll like. We call ourselves the Birds of Prey!”   
She exclaims this proudly, waving her palm across the air as she names her team of elite, female psychos.  
“You always know how to choose em, huh Harley?” I say, chuckling.  
“Hey!” she objects. “I choose you, didn’t I? At least that wasn’t a mistake.”  
I roll my eyes, shoving my hands in my pockets.   
“I need your help Harley.” I say. Looking around the corner of the alley, my eyes wary for flashing blue and red lights.  
“Hey, I have a set fee now Peanut.” Harley says quickly, not handing me back my cigarette. “500 thousand for a kill, 50 thousand to beat em up a lil. Even for an old friend.”  
“You know full well that I can do that on my own.” I say, plucking the cigarette from her puckered lips. “What I need is more in regards to information.”  
“Ooo what kinda info? Who you tryna off?” she asks excitedly.   
“Now that would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?” I reply, taking a long drag from my cigarette. “I just need to know if Bruce Wayne has ever contacted you before, and if he has, what about. Also, what is his psych profile in your professional opinion?”  
“What do you want with Wayne?” she asks, taken aback.  
“Apart from the fact that the man is the richest person in Gotham but has never participated in Gotham’s underground crime scene in his entire existence?” I reply. “Oh, nothing at all.”  
I chose my words carefully, revealing only a corner of my thought process to Harley.  
She looks at me skeptically, her eyebrows scrunched thoughtfully as she regards me.  
“I can tell you that he has a problem with narcissism.” she says. “He likes big, flashy things, and enjoys being the center of attention. He rarely participates in his board meetings, and regularly meets with other self-absorbed, narcissistic billionaires. Each week he flashes off a new car, or a new million dollar watch, or flaunts off his newest supermodel girlfriend.”  
“What about his philanthropy work?” I ask. “Are they fronts for money laundering or?”  
“Wouldn’t you know that?” she retaliates. “You keep an eye on all financial activities that goes on in Gotham.”  
“I do.” I reply. “But Wayne Enterprises has some of the most expensive, high tech systems that are nearly impossible to hack. Besides that, the man keeps his financials secret. He’s in Forbes list of billionaires, but he has absolutely no public records. The only thing that I’ve been able to really dig up on him is that he regularly donates to Gotham Orphanage.”  
“His donations was what made me meet you.” she says, grabbing the cigarette back. “His funding was what put the money into the pockets of the psychologists like me, who evaluated Gotham’s poor kids.”  
“And here I was thinking that you did it out of the kindness of your heart.” I say, smirking.  
“Puddin’s gotta have a little dough, Peanut.” she says. “And I was the youngest psychologist in all of Gotham. My work wasn’t cheap.”  
“When will I ever outgrow that stupid nickname?”  
“As long as you remain the cute lil Peanut you are.” she says, grinning.   
“I have a name you know. And if you keep calling me Peanut I’ll think you’ve forgotten it.”  
“I know.” she replies. “But calling you by a nickname makes me feel like we’re family.”  
“You call everyone by a nickname.”   
“But you’re the only one I call by another food.” she says delightedly. “Just like me. Puddin, and Peanut!”  
“So in other words, Bruce Wayne is a male version of you.” I say, pulling the subject back.  
“Hey!” she protests. “I resent that. I am much more fashionable. I also have self-diagnosed borderline personality disorder, which is quite different from narcissism.”  
“You and your disorders.” I say, shaking my head and putting out the remaining cigarette butt. “What did you diagnose me with again? PTSD?”  
“You have complex post traumatic stress disorder.” she says. “Which is typical in most cases of Gotham’s youth. It’s usually set off by several traumatic moments in your life. The Gotham Board of Psychologists were actually studying the unusual amounts of this disorder in Gotham’s ghettos before I left.”  
“I missed Dr. Harley Quinn.” I tell her. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen her. Though she’s just a tad more insufferable than regular Harley.”  
“Shut the fuck up.” she whines. “Dr. Harley is the same as regular Harley, who is the same as Harleen Francis Quinnzel.”   
“Well either way, I must bid you adieu.” I say, bowing and twirling my wrist in circular, theatrical motion.  
“You be careful, Bisa.” she says suddenly.  
“I always am.”   
“I’m serious.” she insists. “There’s a new person coming to town, goes by the name Ravager. She has a vendetta, so pay attention to not get in her way.”  
“And what makes you think that we’ll cross paths?”  
“You have an uncanny knack at turning up in places you shouldn’t be.” she says. “And make sure that it’s not in my territory. I don’t want to have to scrape your body off of my streets.”  
“I’m going to pretend that I did not hear that.” I say, walking away.   
“Be sure to visit again!” she calls out after me. “I could always use a hacker like you in my back pocket!”   
I flip her off before placing my skateboard on the ground and pushing off.

The entire ride home I think of what Harley told me. I stare out the windows of the dirty bus, my eyes searching the top of the buildings. It’s a ritual of mine and pretty much everyone else, looking up at the skies whenever I’m in a cramped setting such as a bus, or a car. At any minute, a body could come crashing through, crushing the fragile frames of the tin machines, our bodies folded into impossible shapes as either villains or heroes battle for dominance.   
I knew someone a few years ago, who died that way. She was sitting outside of an apartment building, waiting for a friend to get out, when all of a sudden a superhero fell and flattened her car like a pancake. She died almost instantaneously.   
Ever since I’ve avoided taking cars or buses, preferring to skate everywhere I go. Though tonight, the brisk wind is just a little too much for me and my already frozen cheeks. The bus is nearly empty as the thick of night envelopes Gotham. People generally don’t like coming out at night around here, dark figures love the shadows and occupy the dark corners of our grungy city. Nothing is said about it because it has become so normalized that we don’t even notice it anymore. We live in a warzone, constantly assaulted by vigilantes and mastermind villains.   
At the next stop, a man with a cd player climbs up on the bus. He’s wearing several layers of ratty clothes, his outer coat a moth eaten shred of fabric. His hand shakes as he deposits his coins in the machine, his fingers caked in dirt. I watch him out of the corner of my eye, watching as he limps over to his seat. His hair is matted, the skin over his cheeks tight from hunger, his eyes sticking out of his skull. He says nothing, just puts the ancient cd player on the seat next to him.  
“Mind if I play some tunes, boss?” he asks, his voice raspy from years of cigarette use.  
The bus driver shrugs noncommittally, his eyes trained on the road. My companion takes this as a yes, rummaging through his bag and pulling out a well worn cd. He takes it lovingly out of the case and places it delicately in the cd player.  
It skips at first, but soon the warm yet mournful tones of Etta James fill the bus.   
“I’m so blue….” she sings, the sweet melody of the violins accompanying her creating a haunting sound.   
“Ain’t nothin like the classics!” my companion says, waving his hand through the air as the music plays. “I sit by my windowwwww.”  
He sings along with her, and though he is not a particularly good singer, I think it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. I nestle against the window, closing my eyes and listening to the music.   
Even though this existence is miserable, even though I fear for my life at every moment, these pockets of happiness almost make it bearable.   
Almost.


End file.
